By Waduda Muhammad, executive director, Georgians for the Arts

I cannot express the sheer gratitude, fulfillment and joy that I felt and received in making this event come to fruition and for it to be such a success. It has been a very long past three years as Georgians for the Arts strived to recover from the effects of the pandemic on our organization. It was great to see so many familiar faces from across the great state of Georgia. We need more individuals, more artists, more organizations, more funders, more foundations, and more advocates to move Georgia from being 50th in funding for the arts. We need to mobilize a larger body of constituents.

This year’s two-day, annual conference on February 5-6 marked a historical moment in Georgia’s state arts advocacy history. We had a record number of attendees. We sold out the event five days early, with 150 folks traveling from across the state, from as far as Athens, Augusta, Fairburn, Lawrenceville, Macon, Savannah, and throughout greater metro Atlanta. Major funding from all of our Sponsors, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, South Fulton Arts, Fulton County Arts & Culture, River Center, The Fox Theatre, and Center for Puppetry Arts helped to leverage attendees. 

The conference provided art patrons, funders, individuals, organizations, and supporters with key data and stats from the Georgia Arts and Economic Prosperity Report as well as from our keynote speaker, Randy Cohen of Americans for the Arts, who shared data and stats from the National Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 Report. 

Armed with these tools, success stories across the spectrum of arts education, arts and disadvantaged communities, arts councils, and much more, folks left feeling inspired and prepared to speak with their elected officials on Tuesday, February 6, the legislative visit. It was the first time many conference attendees engaged in legislative discussions at the Georgia Capitol. Christopher Escobar,…